The Cat That God Sent

by Jim Kraus

  “He is awfully cute for a cat—and I’m not a cat person,” Dolores said. “But he does look like a good cat.”

  “He started coming the first Sunday I preached. I guess I was upset at first, but now, he makes it his business to be on the platform Sunday morning.”

  “And your church people don’t mind?” Henry asked. “The elders or deacons or whatever you have?”

  Both women turned to stare at Henry.

  “I was just curious.”

  They pivoted back to Jake.

  “No. The elders said that if Petey comes to church, it’s okay with them. Actually, it turns out that more than a few new people have started attending since Petey’s been coming.”

  Henry folded his newspaper and laid it on the table.

  “Interesting. Sounds like you got an interesting church there. Pretty liberal, right? Gays and all that? Not that I’m being judgmental or anything.”

  Jake shook his head.

  “No. If anything the church has a history of being very traditional, very conservative. Very. Fought for years over singing any hymn written later than 1890. So . . . it’s traditional, more or less. We’re traditional, and then some.”

  It took a long moment until Henry’s face softened and a very small smile came, but a smile nonetheless.

  “Might be worth checking out some Sunday. What do you think, Dolores?”

  Both women pivoted back and stared at Henry.

  Beverly spoke first.

  “Henry here said that all church and God stuff is a bunch of hooey. He said that a lot. For a few decades, right? He always used a different word than hooey, but I have respect for having a preacher in here. This is big.”

  Dolores sputtered, “You mean it?”

  Henry shrugged, trying his best not to appear anything other than normal.

  “Sure. A cat in a church. That’s interesting. Makes it more normal, I guess. More human—although that’s a contradiction, isn’t it? Down to earth. I don’t know. Interesting, you know. I’d be willing to give up a Sunday morning to see that.”

  Beverly picked Petey up and held him in her arms. He meowed, enjoying the attention.

  “Henry said it would take an act of God to get him to go back to church. Apparently, your cat, Petey, is an act of God.”

  Petey jumped down and walked to Henry, placed his front paws on his knee, and stared hard at the man’s face.

  “We have service at 11:00,” Jake said. “It’s a nice ride to Coudersport.”

  Henry patted the cat’s head.

  “Maybe. This Sunday. If the weather is nice. Or if I don’t have anything better to do.”

  Petey the cat began to purr.

  “I said maybe, cat. Not for sure.”

  “It’s positive, Tassy,” Dr. Grainger said as she examined the test. “We probably need to get a doctor to confirm that.”

  Tassy appeared to be at the edge of tears.

  “I can’t afford that, Dr. Grainger. I just started working here and if I do see a doctor . . . somebody will find out. I just couldn’t do that to Eleanor. Or Pastor Jake. They trusted me.”

  Dr. Grainger and Tassy sat upstairs from her office, in her small, tidy, very modern kitchen. Dr. Grainger made whole-wheat toast and a cup of tea—the only food Tassy said she was capable of eating.

  Tassy nibbled at one end of a piece of toast, like a mouse nibbling on a cracker, taking cautious, careful bites.

  “We don’t have to do anything today,” Dr. Grainger said. “And I do mean ‘we.’ I won’t let you go through this by yourself. Okay? I want you to know that, Tassy. You’re not alone here.”

  Tassy managed a small smile.

  “Thanks, Dr. Grainger.”

  “We have at least a month to handle this. You can’t be that far along. We still have time. So we don’t have to do anything today.”

  Tassy nodded, like a small child nods when dealing with something much, much bigger than she is.

  “Okay. And thanks. Like a weight off my shoulders. Knowing for sure.”

  Dr. Grainger put her arm around Tassy’s shoulder and squeezed.

  “I know how you feel. And for now, Tassy, let’s keep this a secret. It is nearly impossible to keep any secret in a small town, but let’s keep this just between you and me. Okay?”

  “Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.”

  Each word grew smaller and softer until it was no more than a whisper escaping from Tassy’s mouth.

  “This is not something that needs to ruin your life, Tassy. You’re young. You can start a new life. But not like this. This is not the way to do it. A child needs a family, Tassy. You don’t want it to happen like this, do you?”

  Tassy waited, then shook her head, signifying no, but a reluctant, hesitant no.

  “One mistake does not have to ruin your life. And this would. You know it would. We can correct this. We can handle this, Tassy. Right?”

  She mouthed the word right, but she produced no sound.

  “Good. Then we’ll think about it. But we know what we need to decide, right?”

  Tassy nodded again, smaller this time, and she said not a single word, just nodded.

  And for Dr. Grainger, that was enough.

  For now.

  Jake drove back toward Coudersport, the church, and his home. He did not speak for much of the trip. Petey sat, as was his custom, in the middle of the seat, staring straight ahead. Both appeared to be lost in their thoughts.

  “Petey, I have to tell you that I’m really puzzled.”

  Petey faced him and meowed in response.

  “If Henry said he was going to come to church because of me, I might feel good. Maybe. I don’t know. But he didn’t. He said he would come because of you.”

  Petey churred a reply.

  “I know. It couldn’t be because of me. I know that. I don’t feel particularly close to God. And that’s an understatement. I’m not even in the same county.”

  Petey chirped.

  “Or the same country, for that matter. I’m puzzled because of what will happen when they show up. The people who are coming to see you are hearing me talk. And I feel like a counterfeit preacher up there. Am I really a man of faith? No. So that means then, that all of what I do is just some sort of show. Like a sideshow, or a carnival attraction. Is anyone really encountering the truth? Not from me. Maybe it’s even worse than that. Maybe I’m even worse than a charlatan. Maybe this is all . . . not divine at all. Maybe it’s all pretend. Maybe I’ll wind up hurting a lot of people. Or damaging their faith. I don’t know what to do now, Petey. What should I do? I’ve been lying to everyone since I got here. They think I have faith. I don’t.”

  Petey did not like to walk about while the truck was in motion, but after hearing this, he stood up and tried to climb into Jake’s lap.

  Jake pushed him away, gently, but firmly.

  “Dangerous to do that, Petey. But thanks for the support. What do you think? Do you think it could be a test to see if my faith comes back? Do you think it will happen, Petey? Can a person force faith to come back? Can I make it come back?”

  Petey rammed his head into Jake’s side, as if to tell him to stay with it, to keep searching, to keep trying, and to listen, to listen to that small voice calling for him to return.

  Late that afternoon, after Dr. Grainger insisted on driving Tassy back to her RV, she hurried out of the church parking lot without stopping. She did not want Jake to come out. She did not want to talk to Jake. She didn’t want to see Petey or Jake. She did not want to speak to anyone.

  She drove past Big Dave’s store, driving faster than she should have on the narrow, two-lane road. She snapped off the radio and drove in silence, the wind coughing in the open windows, loud, whining.

  She stopped paying attention to where she was and just drove west, until the surroundings became more and more unfamiliar. She looked down at the speedometer and realized that she was not only breaking the law—by a lot—but also being really, really foolish. Even on
straight, wide roads, with a clear head, Emma was not the best of drivers and became easily distracted.

  Her thoughts were in a swirl, and she had never once envisioned her final moments on earth as flying off the road and slamming into a tree. She slowed down to the legal limit, and a few miles later, pulled off the road onto a wide shoulder overlooking a small valley and a rock-filled stream. She got out of the car and walked to the hood and leaned against it, wishing that she still smoked—a brief aberration in college—so that she had something to do with her hands at a moment like this. Instead, she crossed her arms, shut her eyes, and listened. The engine began to ping and creak as it cooled, birds called out, the breeze ruffled the branches. She heard her own breathing, coming faster than it should, as it always did when she was angry, impatient, and hurt.

  She tried to fend off the flood of memories that the events of today had brought to the forefront. She knew, from the first moment of her encounter with Tassy, that those memories would come and it would be of no use to attempt to hide from them. Hiding would do no good. Drinking would do no good. She had tried that before and it just made for horrid mornings after. She knew she should simply let them happen, let them build and wash over her and then they would be forgotten—at least for a while. Not forgotten really, but put away. Hidden. For a little while.

  This specific set of memories started during the summer between the end of her undergraduate career and the start of veterinary school. She was young, pretty, energetic, and vivacious in a way that drew attention from the most eligible of the eligible young men heading off to graduate school or medical school or to work in their father’s companies.

  Emma Grainger felt—no, knew—that she was at the center of many young men’s desire.

  And for Emma, Josh Cummings was her first and only choice. A premed student headed to Vanderbilt, Josh had met Emma in a math class during their junior year at Penn State. They were a cute couple, by all standards, and appeared destined to marry and have very handsome children.

  But all of that would wait, of course, since medical school was in both of their futures.

  And then it all changed when Emma discovered that she was pregnant, using a pregnancy test kit, much like the one Tassy had just used.

  Emma squeezed her eyes tighter, hoping somehow the past would magically change and the path to today would alter and shift and become . . . different.

  It did not happen today. It never happened. The past remains unchanged. Like always.

  Josh had been sweet and supportive when she’d told him, almost excited. In retrospect, Emma saw his actions as practiced, as if acting out “this is how a man has to act when being told of an unplanned pregnancy: be supportive, be caring, but do not commit to anything.” That is how it had seemed. For the first few days, he had held Emma and had whispered that everything would work out fine, that things were just a little confusing right now, and that they would soon deal with this after having thought it through, using logic and clear thinking.

  A week after the announcement, that’s when “the talk” occurred.

  The question was: “Whose career gets put on hold for this?”

  Josh had to become a doctor. It was his parents’ dream. Emma had to become a veterinarian. It was her dream.

  “A baby is going to make this very, very complicated. One of us will have to give up on their dream . . . if we go through with it. This . . . situation.”

  It had become a “situation” and not a pregnancy. Not a life, not a baby.

  Emma had known what he meant. The thought had crossed her mind without his prompting. A baby would create a massive upheaval in their well-crafted plans for the future. It would add one more hurdle, a huge hurdle, to achieving their dreams.

  “We need to think this through, that’s all. It doesn’t affect the way I feel about you. But we have to face reality. We have to think of our careers. Don’t you agree?”

  Emma had agreed. What choice did she have?

  And Josh had driven her to the facility to “handle it.” He’d driven her home afterward. He’d stayed with her that night, bringing her hot compresses for the cramps, and brewing herbal tea. He’d stayed part of the next day.

  And life went on. For Emma, the colors of her world had changed. They had become muted, burnt sienna instead of red. Life was a bit askew. Sounds were different. Every smile felt forced.

  And one month, to the day, after Emma had “handled it,” Josh had sat in the driver’s seat of his Volvo, after a dinner of pizza and beer, and had told Emma, dispassionately, “This just isn’t working for me. I think we both need some space here. We both need to find our own way. You feel it, too, don’t you, Emma?”

  Emma had not felt it but had seen her new reality in Josh’s hopeful face, only hopeful because he was jettisoning unwanted baggage from his life.

  Emma was that baggage.

  The rest of the summer, and for much of her first year of veterinary school, Emma simply had gone through the motions. She did not hear from Josh at all that year, though a friend said he was dating again—a perky, red-haired, second-year medical student from Syracuse. Emma had felt nothing. She had felt empty.

  And during a routine medical checkup some nine months after “handling it,” the doctor had become more interested than usual in certain things, and had ordered more tests than usual, and afterward, had given her the news that it looked like, to him, at this date, that Emma would probably not be able to have children in the future. Something about scarring. Something about seeing this with some regularity in women who had “handled” things.

  And since then, Emma did her best to hide the guilt and the shame and the anger that “handling it” had caused. For the most part, she was successful. She was not often reminded of the past. Her friends who married and had children were no longer her closest friends, really—drifting apart because of different interests, of course, so her chance of seeing a happy mother and child had grown increasingly slim with each passing month.

  And Emma went on with her life.

  She seldom thought of the word murderer.

  It was not murder.

  It was simply handling a problem.

  She had “handled it.”

  She got her life back. Josh went on with his life.

  No one murdered anything.

  She’d pursued her dream, achieved it, and in that she could take cold comfort.

  And her life went on.

  And she told herself the decision had been correct, even it was painful. And it had been.

  Painful but necessary.

  Not murder. Not murder at all.

  And Tassy would see the truth in that. Eventually. She would.

  13

  Jake picked up the phone in his kitchen and dialed a now-familiar number.

  “Hey, this is Jake. You up for a ride to Port Allegheny? One of the church folk said there is an Italian restaurant there that’s actually pretty good. And I haven’t had good Italian food for weeks. Want to go for dinner? My treat.”

  The phone had rung a number of times, almost to the point of the call automatically going to voice mail. First, Jake wondered if Emma was home, and then he wondered if she had been debating on whether or not to answer his call—based on the caller ID, of course. Jake looked at the caller ID and made those “answer/don’t answer” decisions all the time.

  “Jake, thanks so much for thinking of me, but can I take a rain check on this? I’m . . . I guess I’m just not in the mood for it right now. Maybe some other time, okay?”

  Obviously, her answer took him by surprise, at least a little.

  “Oh. Okay. Maybe some other time, then.”

  As he hung up, he wondered if “some other time” meant something more than just “some other time.” Was Emma trying to tell him that she no longer wanted to see him? Or that she had better things to do than go out to dinner with a pastor who didn’t believe that he should be a pastor? Or that she simply did not really like him at all and was trying
to find an easy, safe, nonconfrontational way to let him know?

  Petey sat on the desk and watched as Jake dialed the phone and held it up to his ear, with an odd, nearly goofy look on his face. He stared intently as Jake spoke, and noticed Jake’s eyes as he hung up the phone. The expression had changed. Dramatically.

  He meowed as if to ask about the problem.

  “She said she wanted a rain check.”

  Petey tilted his head.

  “That’s a nice way to say no.”

  Petey meowed again.

  “Hey, she’s allowed to say no. We’ve only been out a few times. No one said anything about long-term. No one is suggesting that we’re . . . you know . . . dating. It’s okay, Petey. She’s nice, but she isn’t the only person in the world, you know.”

  Petey simply stared back, watching Jake’s eyes.

  “Yes, I know. But I don’t think God has anyone preordained for another person and we have to search until we find that one person. It doesn’t work that way.”

  Petey remained silent.

  “Okay. I get it. I shouldn’t be talking about God’s plan for my dating life, since I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have plans for my spiritual life. Right? That is what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Why would he want me to find a special person when I’m lost myself? That’s it, isn’t it?”

  And with that, Jake stood up quickly, nearly tipping the chair over, and stomped, or almost stomped, out of the room.

  Petey watched him go.

  I just wanted to know what a rain check meant. I never heard that before. Why do they say a “rain check” when they mean “no”? Wouldn’t a “no” be much simpler and easier?

  He licked his paw and wiped his face three times on both sides.

  Human are so confusing, aren’t they?

  The tattered envelope, apparently a reused direct mail solicitation for a credit card, with a new address taped over the old, had arrived in the mail to the church. Jake almost threw it away, but took a second and a third look at it and realized what it was and who had sent it.

  Speedy had sent the map, an intricately drawn map, complete with an index and a map key in the bottom right corner. He had labeled route numbers and street names, indicated Jake’s church, Dr. Grainger’s office, the movie theater, Kaytee’s, and the route to take out of town heading east into the Susquehannock Forest. He had drawn the road to turn off into the forest, and the road to turn off the road that he turned off on, and what stand of trees to look for, and the exact mileage between forks in the road, and included the notation “Rough road, drive slow and watch for badgers.”